The Sea-Story Megapack

by Jack Williamson

  “Report t’ you, sir,” said he, in a surprisingly gruff voice; and at the same time he pulled the lobe of his right ear, which was his invariable manner of salute.

  Sir Archibald and Captain Hand were in close consultation for half an hour; during all of which time the burly captain’s eyes were thickly screened by his eyebrows.

  “Oh, I sees, sir—I sees,” said he, rising, at the end of it. “Oh, ay! Of course, sir—of course!”

  “And you’ll take good care?” Sir Archibald began, almost tenderly.

  “Oh, ay!” heartily. “I ain’t no nurse, as I tells you fair; but you needn’t worry about him, sir.”

  “His mother will be anxious. She’ll hold you responsible, captain.”

  Captain Hand violently pulled the lobe of his right ear, and turned to go. At the door he halted. “Tim Tuttle o’ Raggles Island has turned up again, sir,” he said, “an’ wants t’ be shipped.”

  “Tuttle?” muttered Sir Archibald. “He’s the man who led the mutiny on the Never Say Die. Well, as you will, captain.”

  “Oh, I’ll ship him!” said the captain, grimly; and with a last pull at his ear he disappeared.

  On the heels of the captain’s departure came Archie. He was Sir Archibald’s son; there was no doubt about that: a fine, hardy lad—robust, as every young Newfoundlander should be; straight, agile, alert, with head carried high; merry, quick-minded, ready-tongued, fearless in wind and high sea. His hair was tawny, his eyes blue and wide and clear, his face broad and good humoured. All this appeared as he pulled off his cap, threw back the flaps of his furlined overcoat, picked a stray thread from his knickerbockers, and, at last, eagerly approached his father.

  “You little dandy!” laughed his father.

  Archie laughed, too—and flushed. He knew that his father liked to poke fun at him because the cut of his coat, the knot in his cravat, the polish on his boots, were matters of such deep concern to the boy.

  “Oh, come now, father!” he protested. “Tell me whether I’m to go or not.”

  For reply, Sir Archibald gravely led his son to the window. It was his purpose to impress the boy with the wealth and power (and, therefore, with the responsibilities) of the firm of Armstrong and Son.

  “Come,” said he; “let us watch them fitting out the fleet.”

  The wealth of the firm was vast, the power great. Directly or indirectly, Sir Archibald’s business interests touched every port in Newfoundland, every cove of the Labrador, the markets of Spain and Portugal, of the West Indies and South American Republics. His fishing-schooners went south to the Banks and north to the gray, cold seas off Cape Chidley; the whalers gave chase in the waters of the Gulf and of the Straits; the traders ran from port to port of all that rugged coast; the barques carried cod and salmon and oil to all the markets of the world. And when the ice came drifting down in the spring, the sealers scattered themselves over the waters of the North Atlantic.

  Archie looked into the dusk without, where lay the ships and wharves and warehouses that told the story.

  “They are mine,” said Sir Archibald, gravely, looking deep into his son’s wide-opened eyes. “Some day—”

  Archie was alarmed. What did it all mean? Why was his father so grave? Why had he boasted of his wealth?

  “They will be yours,” Sir Archibald concluded. After a pause, he continued: “The firm has had an honourable career through three generations of our family. My father gave it to me with a spotless reputation. More than that, with the business he gave me the perfect faith of every man, woman and child of the outports. The firm has dealt with its fishermen and sealers as man with man; it has never wronged, or oppressed, or despised them. You are now fifteen years old. In September, you are going to an English public school, and thence to an English university. You will meet with new ideals. The warehouses and ships, the fish and fat, will not mean so much to you. You will forget. It may be, even—for you are something of a dandy, you know—that you will be ashamed to acknowledge that your father is a dealer in fish and seal-oil; that—”

  Archie drew breath to speak.

  “But I want you to remember,” Sir Archibald went on, lifting his hand. “I want you to know a man when you meet one, whatever the clothes he wears. The men upon whom the fortunes of this firm are founded are true men. They are strong, and brave, and true. Their work is toilsome and perilous, and their lives are not unused to deprivation; but they are cheerful, and independent, and fearless, through it all—stout hearts, every one of them! They deserve respectful and generous treatment at the hands of their employers. For that reason I want you to know them more intimately—to know them as shipmates know one another—that you may be in sympathy with them. I am confident that you will respect them, because I know that you love all manly qualities. And so, for your good, and for their good, and for the good of the firm, I have decided that you may—”

  “That I may go?” Archie cried, eagerly.

  “With Captain Hand, of the Dictator, which puts out from Long Tom Harbour at midnight of March tenth.”

  CHAPTER XXVII

  While Billy Topsail is About His Own Business Archie Armstrong Stands on the Bridge of the Dictator and Captain Hand Orders “Full Speed Ahead!” on the Stroke of Twelve.

  And so it came to pass that, at near midnight of the tenth of March, Archie Armstrong, warmly clad in furs, and fairly on fire with excitement, was aboard the staunch old sealer, at Long Tom, half way up the east coast. It was blowing half a gale from the open sea, which lay, hidden by the night, just beyond the harbour rocks. The wind was stinging cold, as though it had swept over immense areas of ice, dragging the sluggish fields after it. It howled aloft, rattled over the decks, and flung the smoke from the funnel into the darkness inland. Archie breasted it with the captain and the mate on the bridge; and he was impatient as they to be off from the sheltered water, fairly started in the race for the north, though a great gale was to be weathered.

  “Good-bye, Skipper John,” he had said to John Roth, with whom he had spent the three days of waiting in this small outport. “I’ll send you two white-coats (young seals) for Aunt Mary’s sitting room, when I get back.”

  “I be past me labour, b’y,” replied John, who was, indeed, now beyond all part in the great spring harvest, “but I’ll give you the toast o’ the old days. ‘Red decks, an’ many o’ them!’”

  “Red decks,” cried Archie, quoting the old proverb, “make happy homes.”

  “’Tis that,” said old John, striking the ground with his staff. “An’ I wish I was goin’ along with you, b’y. There’s no sealin’ skipper like Cap’n Hand.”

  The ship was now hanging off shore, with steam up and the anchor snugly stowed. Not before the stroke of twelve of that night was it permitted by the law to clear from Long Tom. Fair play was thus assured to all, and the young seals were protected from an untimely attack. It was a race from all the outports to the ice, with the promise of cargoes of fat to stiffen courage and put a will for work in the hearts of men: for a good catch, in its deeper meaning, is like a bounteous harvest; and what it brings to the wives and little folk in all the cottages of that cruel coast is worth the hardship and peril.

  “What’s the time, Mr. Ackell?” said the captain to the mate, impatiently.

  “Lacks forty-three minutes o’ the hour, sir,” was the reply.

  “Huh!” growled the captain. “’Tis wonderful long in passin’.”

  “The whole harbour must be down to see the start,” Archie observed looking to the shore.

  “More nor that, b’y,” said the captain. “I’ve got a Green Bay crew. Most two hundred men o’ them, an’ every last one o’ them a mighty man. They’s folk here from all the harbours o’ the bay t’ see us off. Hark t’ the guns they’re firin’!”

  All the folk left in Long Tom—the women and children and old men—were at the waterside; with additions from Morton’s Harbour, Burnt Bay, Exploits and Fortune Harbour. Sailing day for the sealers! It was t
he great event of the year. Torches flared on the flakes and at the stages all around the harbour. The cottages were all illuminated with tallow candles. Guns were discharged in salute. “God speed!” was shouted from shore to ship; and you may be sure that the crew was not slow to return the good wishes. Archie marked one man in particular—a tall, lean fellow, who was clinging to the main shrouds, and shouting boisterously.

  “Well, we can’t lose Tuttle,” said the mate, with a grin, indicating the man in the shrouds.

  The captain frowned; and Archie wondered why. But he thought no more of the matter at the moment—nor, indeed, until he met Tuttle face to face—for the wind was now blowing high; and that was enough to think of.

  “Let it blow,” said bluff Captain Hand. “’Tis not the wind I cares about, b’y. ’Tis the ice. I reckon there’s a field o’ drift ice offshore. This nor’east gale will jam the harbour in an hour, an’ I don’t want t’ be trapped here What’s the time, now, Mr. Ackell?”

  “Twenty-seven minutes yet, sir.”

  “Take her up off Skull Head. That’s within the law.”

  The drift ice was coming in fast. There was a small field forming about the steamer, and growing continuously. Out to sea, the night-light now revealed a floe advancing with the wind, threatening to seal tight the narrow harbour entrance.

  “If we have t’ cut our way out,” muttered the captain, “we’ll cut as little as we can. Mr. Girth!” he roared to the second mate, “get the bombs out. An’ pick a crew that knows how t’ use ’em.”

  The Dictator moved forward through the gathering ice towards Skull Head; and the three other steamers, whose owners had chosen to make the start from Long Tom, followed slyly on her heels, evidently hoping to get to sea in her wake, for she was larger than they. When her engines were stopped off the Head, it lacked twelve minutes of sailing time. An unbroken field of ice lay beyond the harbour entrance, momentarily jammed there. Would the ship be locked in?

  “Can’t we run for it, sir?” asked the mate. “’Tis but seven minutes too soon.”

  “No,” said the captain. “We’ll lie here t’ midnight t’ the second. Then we’ll ram that floe, if we have t’. Hear me?” he burst out, such was the tension upon patience. “We’ll ram it! We’ll ram it!”

  It appeared that they would have to. Archie could hear the ice crunching as the floe pressed in upon the jam. Pans were lifted out of the water, and, under the mighty force of the mass behind, were heaped up between the rocks on either side of the narrows. The barrier seemed even now to be impassable; and it had yet seven minutes to gather strength. If it should prove too great to be broken, the fleet might be locked in for a week; and with every hour of delay the size of the prospective catch would dwindle. The captains of the nearer vessels were madly shouting to the old skipper of the Dictator to strike before it was too late; but he gave them no heed whatever. He stood with his watch in his hand, waiting for the moment of midnight.

  “We’re caught!” cried the mate.

  The captain said nothing. He was watching the jam—hoping that it would break of its own weight.

  “Three minutes, sir,” said the mate.

  The captain glanced at the watch in his hand. “Two an’ a half,” he muttered, a moment later.

  A pause.

  “Midnight, sir!” cried the mate.

  “Go ahead!”

  Archie heard the tinkle of the bell in the engineer’s room below: then the answering signal on the bridge. The crew raised a cheer; the mate pulled the whistle rope; there was a muffled hurrah from the shore.

  “Half speed! Port a little!”

  The steamer gathered headway. She was now making for the harbour entrance on a straight course.

  “Full speed!”

  Then the Dictator charged the barrier.

  CHAPTER XXVIII

  In Which Archie Armstrong falls in with Bill o’ Burnt Bay and Billy Topsail of Ruddy Cove and Makes a Speech

  There is no telling what would have happened had the Dictator struck the jam of ice in the narrows of Long Tom Harbour. Captain Hand was not the man to lose half a voyage because there was a risk to be taken; had he been used to counting the risk, he would not have been in command of the finest ship in Armstrong and Son’s fine fleet. Rather than be locked in the harbour, he had launched his vessel at the barrier, quietly confident that she would acquit herself well. But, as he had foreseen, the jam broke of its own weight before the steamer struck. Of a sudden, it cracked, and gave way; the key blocks had broken. It then remained only to breast the pack, which was not at all an impossible undertaking for the stout Dictator.

  With her rivals following close, she struck the floe, broke a way through, and pushed on, with a great noise, but slowly, surely; and she was soon in the open sea. The course was then shaped northeast, for it appeared that open water lay in that direction. The floe retarded the ship’s progress, but could not stop it; the ice pans crashed against her prow and scraped her sides, but she was staunch enough to withstand every shock; and so, gaining on the rest of the fleet, she crept out to sea, in the teeth of the rising gale.

  At two o’clock in the morning, Archie Armstrong was still on the bridge with the captain and mate. The lights of the fleet were lost in the night behind. The Dictator had laboured through the first field of ice into open water. The sea was dotted with great, white “pans,” widely scattered; and, as the captain had feared, there were signs of bergs in the darkness roundabout. The waves were rising, spume crested, on every hand; at intervals, they broke over the bows, port and starboard, with frightful violence. Gusts of wind whirled the spray to the bridge, where it soon sheathed men and superstructure in ice.

  “Send a lookout aloft, Mr. Ackell,” said the captain, after he had long and anxiously peered straight ahead.

  The thud of ice, as the seas hurled it against the ship’s prows, the hiss and crash of the waves, the screaming of the gale, drowned the captain’s order.

  “Pass the word for Bill o’ Burnt Bay!” he roared.

  A short, brawny man, of middle age, who had not missed a voyage to the ice in twenty years, soon appeared in response to the call, which had gone from mouth to mouth through the ship. Archie was inclined to smile when he observed Bill’s unkempt, sandy moustache, which was curiously given an upward twist at one side, and a downward twist at the other. Nevertheless, he was strongly attracted to him; for he looked like a man who could be trusted to the limit of his courage and strength.

  “Take a glass t’ the nest, b’y, an’ look sharp for bergs,” the captain ordered. “Don’t stay up there. Come back an’ report t’ me here.”

  The man went off with a brisk, “Ay, ay, sir!” It was his duty to clamber to the crow’s-nest—a cask lashed to the topmast just below the masthead—and to sweep the sea for signs of bergs.

  “’Tis more than I bargained for, Mr. Ackell,” the captain went on, to the mate, in an anxious undertone, which, however, Archie managed to catch; and it may be added that the lad’s heart jumped into his throat, and had a hard time getting back into place again.

  “Dirty weather, sir!” the mate agreed. “I’m thinkin’ we’re close to some heavy ice.”

  “Well,” said the captain, after a pause, “keep her head as she points now. I’ll have a look ’tween decks.”

  Archie was tempted to ask the captain “if there was any danger.” The foolish question was fairly on the tip of his tongue; but his better sense came to his rescue in time. Danger? Of course, there was! There was always danger. He had surely not come on a sealing voyage expecting none! But catastrophe was not yet inevitable. At any rate, it was the captain’s duty to sail the ship. He was responsible to the owners, and to the families of the crew; the part of the passenger was but bravely to meet the fortune that came. So, completely regaining his courage, Archie followed the captain below.

  ‘Tween decks the stout hearts were rollicking still. The working crew had duty to do, every man of them; but the two hundred hunters,
who had been taken along to wield gaff and club, were sprawled in every place, singing, laughing, yarning, scuffling, for all the world like a pack of boys: making light of discomfort, and thinking not at all of danger, for the elation of departure still possessed them. Had any misgiving still remained with Archie, the sight of this jolly, careless crowd of hunters would have quieted it. They were not alarmed. Then, why should he be? Doubtless, it was responsibility that made the captain anxious.

  In the improvised cabin aft, Ebenezer Bowsprit, of Exploits, was roaring the “Luck o’ the Northern Light,” a famous old sealing song, which, no doubt, his grandfather had sung to shipmates upon similar occasions long ago. Rough, frank faces, broadly smiling, were turned to him; and when it came time for the chorus, willing voices and mighty lungs swelled it to a volume that put the very gale to shame. The ship was pitching violently—with a nauseating roll occasionally thrown in—and the cabin was crowded and hot and filled with clouds of tobacco smoke; but neither pitch, nor roll, nor heat, nor smoke, could interfere with the jollity of the occasion.

  “All right here,” the captain growled, grinning in his great beard.

  “Speech, Sir Archie!” shouted one of the men.

  Before Archie could escape—and amid great laughter and uproar and louder calls for a speech—he was caught by the arm, jerked off his feet, and hoisted on the table, where he bumped his head, and, by an especially violent roll of the vessel, was almost thrown headlong into the arms of the grinning crowd around him.

  “Speech, speech!” they roared.